


beautiful like demolition

by EllEli



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Alternate Universe - Werewolves Are Known, Angst, F/F, Hurt/Comfort
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-02-26 15:21:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,953
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2656883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EllEli/pseuds/EllEli
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When her family had built The Hale House, ten years ago, it had been with the best of intentions. Weres and other supernaturals were being hunted down and killed in the streets. Their desecrated bodies were being displayed on the news like trophies, hunters showing them off like fishermen posing with their biggest catch. They needed a place to hide, until things got better.</p>
<p>Laura understood now that things were never going to get better.</p>
            </blockquote>





	beautiful like demolition

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from a Henry Rollins quote that partially inspired this fic. (Read the full thing [here.](http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/333558-you-are-beautiful-like-demolition-just-the-thought-of-you)) Inspiration was also taken from three different A Softer World strips ([1](http://asofterworld.com/index.php?id=978), [2](http://smg.photobucket.com/user/amor_remanet/media/asw%20strips/millennial1a_zpsf9d4e0bc.jpg.html), and [3](http://smg.photobucket.com/user/amor_remanet/media/asw%20strips/millennial2_zps167ee4de.jpg.html)).
> 
> This was written for the Teen Wolf Femslash Exchange, for a dropped participant. Massive thanks to the mods for putting this together, Seath for proof reading, and Zani for the advice.

Sometimes, Laura wondered if all of this was even worth it anymore.

When her family had built The Hale House, ten years ago, it had been with the best of intentions. Weres and other supernaturals were being hunted down and killed in the streets. Their desecrated bodies were being displayed on the news like trophies, hunters showing them off like fishermen posing with their biggest catch. They needed a place to hide, until things got better.

Laura understood now that things were never going to get better.

Human governments were always going to be greedy and corrupt. They were always going to use people like her as scapegoats for their cruelty. And people she knew and loved were going to keep dying, until there were none of them left.

Some called this thing between the humans and the supernaturals a war. But Laura wasn’t that naive. War meant that two sides went up against each other, that there was some goal, that there was a possibility of a positive outcome. It wasn’t war.

It was genocide.

Still, she supposed, her life could have been worse. While The Hale House hadn’t exactly lived up the the expectations of her parents, living there was still a better alternative to being on the streets. The constant running and hunger. The threat of being found out at any moment - of being murdered, raped, or forced into werewolf fighting.

At least here she had a bed to sleep in. She had her family and friends - or who was left of them, anyway.

And there was Kali.

Kali had been one of the first to show up at The Hale House, bloody and angry and shaking all over. An alpha who’d lost her entire pack, who was more interested in ripping humans open than saving the lives of werewolves. Who spoke of a world where humans would _bow_ to the superior races of the supernatural. Teenage Laura Hale had swooned over her.

Twenties Laura Hale wasn’t doing much better.

Her fingernails tapped anxiously on the bartop, eyes flicking every few seconds to the clock on the wall. It was only just past ten, but they were already closed down for the night, the whole place uncomfortably and unusually quiet.

The Hale House was, for all intents and purposes, a _bar_. They had a parking lot, they had regular customers, they served alcohol and chicken wings and played music on a shitty old jukebox.

It was what was underneath the bar that made it different. The massive renovated basement that housed - at last count - upwards of twenty supernaturals and a few human family members.

Laura was the one in charge here. Sort of. After her parents’ death and her uncle’s disappearance, Laura had been the one to step up and take the reigns. Well, along with Melissa McCall, the public - _human_ \- face of the establishment, and surrogate mother to the orphaned masses.

When the door to the basement opened with a loud creak, the hair on the back of her neck stood up. Her eyes shot over, as she watched people begin to emerge.

Tonight, the smugglers would leave to go on their latest mission. They went out into the world, away from the relative safety of The Hale House, to seek out anyone in need of their protection. They brought back who they could. They risked their lives to save the lives of others.

But the whole thing made Laura’s stomach ache.

Especially since Kali had joined the group.

While the others said their goodbyes to family and friends, Kali moved towards the bar, and Laura’s heart caught in her throat. Silently, she slid a shot of wolfsbane-laced whiskey towards her, and Kali tipped it back without pause.

“You’re headed towards the border this time.”

Kali nodded, absentmindedly cracking her knuckles. “Four day trip, if we don’t run into any trouble.”

Laura bit at the inside of her cheek, and nodded her head. “You’ll be careful?”

“Of course. I’m always careful.”

Laura knew that wasn’t true. She knew that, while a great deal of Kali’s anger had died down in the years that she’d been here, it was still inside of her. Just under the surface. Causing her to take risks and lash out and -

Laura took a deep breath. There was nothing she could do about that.

“Kali, I-”

“Kali!”

The too-familiar, lilting voice made Laura’s eyes roll into the back of her head. She pointedly turned away when the woman approached, picking up Kali’s now-empty shot glass to deposit into the sink.

“Thank God. I thought I missed you. Um, I made you this. It’s a protection charm. I didn’t have all the oils - but, um. It should still work. I think.”

“Thanks, Jen.”

The _Jen_ in question being Jennifer Blake.

Jennifer hadn’t been with them long, a little over a year. She was a druid. Druids had an easier go of it than most - their magic was performed only by choice, and was hidden without problem. She’d come to The Hale House not to escape persecution, but to help.

And, Laura suspected, because she wanted to be near Kali.

They had _history,_ or something.

Laura didn’t trust her.

“We should get going.” Kali addressed the rest of the room, and Laura felt the communal wince. Her eyes glanced up towards the other smugglers, preparing to leave.

Scott - Melissa’s son, one arm wrapped around his mother’s shoulders, the other around the waist of his boyfriend - and Braeden - one of the few humans, talking quietly with Allison Argent and Isaac Lahey - were the only others going this trip. They nodded at Kali’s words.

“Bye, Laura,” Kali’s voice was soft, her eyes warm when Laura looked up and met them, and her chest ached.

“See you soon.”

Kali said a quiet goodbye to Jennifer, before she turned away from the bar.

As the three smugglers made their way out of The Hale House, Laura felt the familiar presence of her brother join her. Derek put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed.

“They’ll be back.”

Laura reached up to squeeze his hand. She admired his staunch belief. She’d been that way, once.

Before her parents had gone on a mission and never returned. Before responsibility for her siblings and everyone else had fallen on her shoulders, and her childhood had been ripped out from under her. Before she’d started wondering if this, if any of this, was really worth it.

**********

If she thinks about it, she won’t be able to come back from it.

That’s what Laura told herself. She couldn’t let her mind wander, she had to keep busy. She scrubbed down the bar, stocked and restocked and took inventory of the food, water, medical supplies, weapons, and anything else that she could get her hands on. She took two showers a day, methodically scrubbing underneath her fingernails and behind her ears.

She sparred with Erica and Isaac, or Allison, or Cora, or Kira - or whoever was around and willing to fight her. Played chess with Boyd. She sat next to Derek while he read and stared at the words on the page of the book he’d given her. She did perimeter checks with Noshiko, made lists to send Stiles and Lydia on runs when they needed things, let Melissa talk to her in the quiet evenings.

She didn’t let her mind _wander_. Because if she did… she might think about… how they hadn’t heard from the smugglers in a few days.

Fuck.

Laura rubbed her hands over her face, nails curling down to scratch at the patch of skin above her eyebrows. She hated this. She hated feeling weak, feeling like there wasn’t a single Goddamn thing that she could _do_ about _anything._

They weren’t here. And they hadn’t called. And she didn’t know what that meant. She didn’t fucking know what that meant.

“Laura?”

Her head shot up from where she was slumped over the bar, her eyes narrowing. Why was it that the last person she wanted to see always had a way of showing up at exactly the moment when she least wanted to see them?

“What?” She bit the word out through her teeth, palms lowering down to the wooden bartop.

Jennifer raised an eyebrow at her, her hands sliding around her waist. “I was just wondering if you were okay. You look-”

“Yep. Fucking chipper, honestly.”

As much as Laura wanted to feel bad - Jennifer was just checking on her, she wasn’t doing anything _wrong_ \- she couldn’t make herself. Kali was gone, out there somewhere - God knew where - doing God knew what, with God knew who at this point, and the last thing she needed was her ex-girlfriend bustling around, her very presence a reminder of what Laura was trying so hard not to think about.

So, no. She didn’t feel bad. She watched Jennifer’s mouth turn into a thin line, before she walked off. And then she went to find someone to distract her.

**********

Distractions stopped working around the two week mark.

 _Two weeks._ Laura couldn’t wrap her head around it. Kali’s words kept swirling through her thoughts.

_”Four day trip, if we don’t run into any trouble.”_

What kind of trouble had they run into? Had they tried to help a werewolf who was too far gone from civilized? Had he attacked them for their food, or their car, or their guns? Had they run into a group of hunters, who shot first and asked questions later?

Melissa tried to keep herself together. But it wasn’t working. Laura could see the cracks in her, the way she’d start shaking, the way her voice turned manic, high pitched. Noshiko had to steer her away from other people sometimes, take her downstairs, into their tent.

Laura heard crying from the tent every night.

Stiles and Allison had branched off from the others. They wandered the perimeter together at night, and sometimes Laura watched them from a distance. They never spoke. She wondered what they were thinking. She wondered if their humanity allowed them to share the pain without the need for words.

She was doing okay. She told herself this was true because there was no other alternative. She couldn’t not be okay. She was the leader. She was in charge. Someone needed to keep everyone together, and that someone was her.

She had done it before. She had rallied them together when it became clear that her parents were never coming back. She could do it again. She could boost morale. They would be fine. They would be fine. They had to be fine.

Maybe she wasn’t fine.

Laura couldn’t seem to catch her breath. Her tent was spinning around her, making her teeth chatter and her bones itch. She slumped down, landing hard on her ass, but she barely even felt the pain.

She had to be fine. She had to be _strong._

“Laura?”

She couldn’t look up. She was afraid something in her face might betray her, might betray the turmoil churning in her chest.

Unbidden, a whimper escaped her throat, and she was betrayed, anyway. The next thing she knew, arms were wrapping around her, a soft, feminine body pressed against her side.

“Shh. Just breathe. Just breathe. I’m right here. I got you. You’re okay.”

Laura tried to summon the will to be angry. To yell. To get defensive and push her away and stand up and storm off. She was supposed to be the leader. Leaders didn’t lean on people. They especially didn’t lean on people they didn’t even like.

But no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t make herself.

Eventually, she managed to focus on the sound of the other woman’s heartbeat. The steady bump - bump - bump. She closed her eyes and slumped towards her, breathing it in, until she could feel her own heartbeat match up.

Laura stayed like that for a while, just letting Jennifer hold her.

Jennifer was kind enough not to ask questions. She balanced her chin on Laura’s shoulder, her hand stroking up and down her back, softly.

Laura had the inane thought that the other woman smelled like almond oil. She’d probably been working on some kind of concoction, when she’d heard Laura’s little… meltdown.

_That_ thought was enough to get her to pull away, sliding a few inches across the floor and wiping her sleeves over her eyes and cheeks. Jennifer offered her a half-smile.

She didn’t like Jennifer being nice to her. It was easier, hating her. Easier being spiteful towards her than considering that maybe it was all just jealousy, because Jennifer had a connection with Kali that Laura didn’t. Because they knew each other in ways that Laura wasn’t a part of.

But Kali wasn’t here right now. And it was hard to hate someone who kept smiling at you like that.

“I’m okay now,” she mumbled, tucking a strand of dark hair behind her ear and looking away.

Jennifer didn’t say anything. She sat with her for a while longer, though, like she was watching her, waiting to see if Laura was going to break apart again.

She didn’t.

But she did wonder if she was as okay as she wanted people to believe. If any of them could really be okay if the smugglers never came back.

**********

At three in the morning, the smell of blood and the sound of baleful howling yanked Laura from her bed like the hand of God. She could feel the others waking up all around her, following her from their underground home to the surface, but she wasn’t focused enough to know which ones were at her heels.

The closer she drew, the more defined their smells became.

“They’re back.”

She practically choked on the words, flinging the bar door open and racing barefoot across the dirt.

“Laura!”

Braeden cried her name, and Laura felt tears sting her eyes. The girl appeared relatively unharmed, no marks to speak of but the dirty, tattered clothes she was wearing.

The same couldn’t be said of the werewolves at her side. Scott appeared slumped over, one hand clutching his chest, like he was afraid his insides might fall out, if he let go. A girl that Laura didn’t recognize, someone that hadn’t been with them when they left, was covered in scratches, her thin body trembling as she tried to help Braeden support Kali between them.

Kali appeared unconscious. The amount of blood covering her… Laura prayed it wasn’t all her’s. Her hands shot out to take her body from Braeden and the unfamiliar girl, and panic sent her heart sputtering when Kali didn’t stir at all.

She needed a healer. They all needed a healer.

“ _Jennifer!_ ”

Within seconds, Jennifer appeared at her side. “Give her to me,” she asked, softly, and Laura found herself passing Kali’s body over without hesitation.

“Get the others downstairs. Melissa, I’m going to need your help.”

Melissa, who was standing at Scott’s side, her face pressed into her son’s shoulder, nodded silently.

Laura watched them disappear back into the bar, fighting every instinct that she had to follow them. But she didn’t. She knew she needed a rundown.

She turned back to look at Braeden and Allison, who had apparently stayed behind - her cheeks smudged with dirt, like she’d kissed Braeden’s dirty face when Laura wasn’t looking - and nodded towards the bar. “Come on, let’s get you something to eat.”

A few minutes later found the three of them, alongside Derek and Noshiko, sitting at a table in the corner of the bar, Braeden peeling apart pieces of stew meat and washing them down with a pitcher of water.

“We made it to Mexico. That’s where we met Malia.”

Laura nodded, anxiously waiting for Braeden to finish, so she could go downstairs and see what was going on with the others. She could only assume Malia was the girl that had been with them.

“We were going to pick her up and head back. It seemed easy enough, but there was a complication…” Her words trailed off and Laura raised an eyebrow.

“What kind of complication?”

“She was being followed.”

“By hunters?”

“Sort of.”

Laura sighed, and rubbed her hands over her face. “What does that mean, Brae?”

“You’re not going to like it.”

Braeden was a straight-shooter. She didn’t bullshit and she didn’t sugar coat. And if she said Laura wasn’t going to like it, Laura had no doubt in her mind that she was not gonna like it.

Still, she needed an answer.

She popped an eyebrow again, waiting, and Braeden finally sighed.

“Malia was being followed by her biological father. He was the one who attacked us. Peter Hale.”

Laura’s heart felt like it stopped in her chest. Beside her, she heard Derek’s breathing quicken.

Braeden had been right, of course.

She didn’t like it.

**********

Peter Hale was Laura’s uncle. He’d been out with her parents, looking for lone wolves to take in, the night that they’d been attacked. He’d been the one to come back and tell them what had happened, that the Argents had gotten hold of them.

(The Argents. Another disaster. Kate Argent had wormed her way into Derek’s heart, playing the innocent, eager-to-help human girl. And then she’d almost burned the bar down around them, while they slept. It hadn’t surprised Laura that she’d been the one to kill her parents. Her and the rest of her blood thirsty family.

Of course, imagine Laura’s surprise when Allison Argent had showed up at their door. It had seemed like Kate all over again. But that’s another story.)

And then he’d just… disappeared. She’d wondered if the loss of his sister had been too much for him to handle, or if he was just angry that the role of leader had fallen to Laura, instead of him. Peter had never been the best person, but she hadn’t wanted to believe he was capable of hurting people. Not like this.

Still. It didn’t surprise her as much as she wished it did.

**********

Malia, as it turned out, fit in with the rest of them like she’d always been there. She and Cora were quick to attach at the hip, and it warmed some cold part of Laura’s heart to see them together.

Scott had bounced back from his injuries, after a few days of resting. Of course, Melissa and Stiles still followed him around, asking if he needed anything, making sure he was alright.

Laura thought he probably didn’t like the attention. Scott was great at taking care of other people, but not so great at being taken care of. She caught his eye and offered him a sympathetic smirk.

The only one who was still healing was Kali.

She’d taken the brunt of the damage, and, at Jennifer’s estimate, it would be another few weeks before she was back at fighting speed. That was practically an eternity for someone who healed the way they did.

Laura had baked a loaf of double chocolate bread, chocolate powder in the flour, with chocolate chips mixed in. It was indulgent, and just on this side of too sweet, and always had a way of making people feel better. Especially when it was hot from the oven.

She made her way down the stairs, into the underground bunker, and moved towards the dark purple tent that belonged to Kali.

Just outside, she paused.

Through the barely opened flap, she could see Kali sitting up in her bed, her arms outstretched. Jennifer hovered over her, working some kind of ointment into her skin, from her elbows to her wrists.

“Does that feel better?” Jennifer’s voice was soft, but Laura didn’t have a problem hearing her.

“Yeah.”

She knew she should make her presence known. She was spying on them. It was an invasion of privacy. It was wrong of her. But she couldn’t make herself look away.

When Jennifer finished with the ointment, she sat down on the edge of Kali’s bed. Laura watched as her hand came to rest, gently, on the other woman’s knee.

“Do you want something to eat?”

“No, I’m not hungry.”

Laura’s cheeks flushed, and she angrily gripped the plate of chocolate bread tighter. Stupid idea.

Jennifer’s fingers brushed higher up, towards Kali’s thigh, and Laura heard a crack in the woman’s voice when she said, “You aren’t ever allowed to try and die on me again.”

Kali laughed, but there was no humor behind it, more a quick grunt from her chest than anything else.

“I’ll try and remember that.”

They stared at each other for a moment longer, and Laura watched Kali shift against the blankets. She watched her lean forward and twine Jennifer’s fingers with her own.

When they started to lean in towards each other, she finally found it in herself to turn and walk away. She didn’t need to watch this. She knew what was coming.

As she headed back upstairs, and dropped the plate of chocolate bread onto the table - which was almost immediately attacked by Stiles - it occurred to her that she wasn’t angry. She’d spent so much of her time and energy hating Jennifer for the connection that she had with Kali, for wanting that to be her. And now that it was right in front of her, she wasn’t mad. Not at all.

Disappointed, sure. She still wanted it to be her. But more than that, she wanted Kali to be happy.

And, she realized, surprising herself, she wanted Jennifer to be happy, too.

**********

“Laura?”

Laura glanced up from what she was doing, helping Braeden and Allison clean off the weapons, to give Jennifer a half-smile.

“What’s up?”

“Kali’s asking for you.”

Immediately, the smile vanished from her mouth. It had been a week since she’d accidentally-on-purpose spied on the two of them, in their intimate moment, and she’d assumed that she’d gotten away with it. But of course she hadn’t. You couldn’t sneak up on _Kali._ God, she was probably going to call her a pervert or something, wasn’t she?

“Oh. Um. Well, let me just finish up-”

“We got it,” Braeden cut in, reaching over and easily taking the throwing star out of Laura’s hand.

She wanted to strangle her.

Instead, she smiled, as best she could. “Okay.”

She brushed past Jennifer, and headed down the length of the bunker’s thin corridor, until she reached Kali’s tent. When she entered, she was pleasantly surprised.

She hadn’t come by since the day she’d seen them together, and the change in Kali since then was drastic. Her wounds seemed to have healed, completely - those that Laura could see - and she was sitting up straighter, she’d changed into clean clothes. The aura around her smelled better. Healthier.

Kali smiled at her and pointed to the edge of her bed. “Hey, stranger.”

“Hey.” Laura sat down, uneasily, and licked at the corner of her mouth. “Jennifer said you wanted to see me?”

“You haven’t been down in a while.”

She nibbled at her lower lip, watching Kali’s face for some kind of accusation. Like, ‘ _you haven’t been down here in a while - not since you spied on me!_ ’ But she couldn’t find one.

“I know. It’s been crazy. What with Malia and the whole… Peter thing.”

“Oh.” Kali nodded, looking away for a moment, staring at the far wall. 

Laura could feel the silence getting thicker and thicker every moment that it passed, but just as she was about to break it, Kali spoke again.

“So, I’ve been talking to Jennifer. About you.”

Laura’s eyebrows shot up. “Me?”

“Yeah.” Kali shifted, tugging at the blanket around her waist. “About how there are things… I would really have regretted never saying to you. If I had died out there.”

Laura could feel a ball form in her throat, and she swallowed past it. “Oh?”

“And Jennifer thinks you’d like to hear me say them. So… I just wanted to tell you that… I really didn’t want to die without… without telling you how much I like you, Laura.” She glanced up, taking a deep breath. “Because I like you a lot.”

Kali reached out and took Laura’s hand, her thumb brushing against her knuckles.

Her heart thundered a little against the inside of her chest, and Laura felt like her head was spinning. “But… you and Jennifer…”

“Like each other a lot, too.”

“And she… she wanted you to tell me this?”

Kali nodded, and when the blunt edge of her fingernail brushed against Laura’s skin, she shivered.

“So… was she right? Did you… want to hear me say that?”

Laura blinked a few times, staring at Kali’s face like she wasn’t sure if this were a dream or not. Because real life never worked out like this.

And even if it were real? She didn’t know if she could handle it. Jennifer and Kali were… something. She didn’t know if she could be a side-girl. If that was even what Kali was playing at here.

But… they all had things they’d regret not doing if they died.

So, instead of thinking about any of that for a moment longer, Laura leaned in, wrapped her fingers around Kali’s neck, and kissed her.

**********

The sound of pained moaning woke her up. Like an animal caught in a trap, the noise was pathetic and heartbreaking.

Laura staggered to her feet, trying to push sleep away. She’d been up late closing The Hale House last night, she couldn’t have been asleep for more than a couple of hours already.

When she made her way into the ill-lit corridor, she realized that the noises were coming from Kali’s tent.

Biting back a yawn, she stumbled over to it, pushing back the flap. Kali was stretched out on her side, curling around a pillow, whimpers and cries of pain leaving her mouth. She appeared to be fast asleep.

Laura frowned, and practically fell over herself getting to her, sitting down and rubbing a hand against the small of her back, trying to shake her softly.

“Kali. Kali, wake up. You’re having a nightmare.”

When the other woman sat up, it was with a surge, claws swiping at an invisible enemy. Laura ducked to avoid being sliced open on them.

“Whoa. Whoa, easy, you’re okay. It’s okay, I’m right here.”

She wiggled in against her side and wrapped her arms around Kali’s waist. Kali shuddered and then sobbed, the sound broken and awful.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. It was - he was killing me and -”

“I know. It’s okay.”

“Do you want me to get you something to help you sleep?”

The voice was unexpected, because Laura hadn’t heard Jennifer join them. But when she turned her head, she was standing there, in the doorway, watching them with a sad little twist to the corner of her mouth. Kali paused, but then nodded, and Jennifer darted out to get whatever she had for her.

Laura brushed her fingers against the small of Kali’s back, holding onto her as best she could.

She hated her uncle. If she ever saw Peter Hale again, she was going to rip him open herself.

When Jennifer reappeared, she climbed onto Kali’s other side and passed a little vial of clear liquid into her hand. Kali brought it to her mouth, but just before she drank it, she looked at the two of them, tearfully.

“You’ll stay with me tonight?”

“Of course we will.” Laura answered without hesitation, and Jennifer nodded in agreement.

Satisfied, Kali nodded, and tipped the drink down her throat, lying back down against her pillows.

Within moments, she was breathing deeply again.

Laura sighed, thankful, and pressed her chest to Kali’s back, making herself into the big spoon. She wrapped her arms around her middle and tucked her face into Kali’s neck, breathing in the smell of her.

Her hand brushed against Jennifer’s hip, and she pulled it back, awkwardly. But a moment later, she felt thin fingers grip her own, twisting their hands together.

Laura nodded, her eyes slipping closed, and then fell back into a deep sleep.

**********  
 **one year later**  


“You’ll be careful?”

“Of course. I’m always careful.”

Kali leaned forward and pressed her mouth to Laura’s, before Laura could argue that she _knew_ that wasn’t true. She kissed her back, sighing quietly into her mouth, and then giving her an irritated half-glare when she pulled back.

At Laura’s side, Jennifer leaned in and pressed her own kiss to Kali’s mouth. “You’ll call every night. And text whenever you have some downtime.”

“Of course. You two need to relax. Haven’t you learned by now that I’m unsinkable?”

Laura crossed her arms over her chest while Jennifer huffed, and the two exchanged irate expressions.

Kali chuckled, quietly, wrapping her arms around both and pressing soft kisses into the tops of their heads.

“I’ll be fine. You’ll keep each other company while I’m gone, and then I’ll be back before you know it.”

Laura sighed softly, giving a weak nod of her head.

As Kali doubled checked her bag and started to round up the other smugglers, Laura couldn’t help but think back to the last time they had done this. She had asked herself then if any of it was worth it. If anything that they did here had any meaning, at the end of the day.

And honestly, maybe it didn’t. After all, they were just delaying the inevitable. They were all going to die. Whether that fate came from a hunter’s bullet, a rogue werewolf, or the cruel hands of time was yet to be seen.

But Laura? Laura had things to do before she died.

And, in her mind, that made it all worth it.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Tumblr](http://themilkoviches.tumblr.com/), if you're into it.


End file.
